Flying by the Seat of My Pants

Alex Barton deserves better

Imagine; your five year old comes home from kindergarten one day, utterly devastated. He never wants to go back. You wonder what could possibly have upset him so. He’s a quirky, cute, smart little guy with a heart of gold. Sure, he’s got some challenges; what five-year old doesn’t? Okay, he’s being evaluated by school as possibly being autistic; but they know that so it can’t be a school issue, right? Something must have happened with a kid on the playground. Yeah, that’s it. Better check with his teacher.

This is what happened to five year old Alex Barton of Port St. Lucie, Florida:

Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son’s kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about Barton’s 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class.

Melissa Barton filed a complaint with Morningside’s school resource officer, who investigated the matter, Port St. Lucie Department spokeswoman Michelle Steele said. But the state attorney’s office concluded the matter did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse, so no criminal charges will be filed, Steele said.

Port St. Lucie Police no longer are investigating, but police officials are documenting the complaint, she said. Steele said the teacher confirmed the incident took place.

When I read this story, I was utterly horrified. Yes, it is a blatant act of discrimination against a child who is potentially classified as “disabled” and who should be protected by numerous federal laws against discrimination. But this incident goes so far beyond just autism or disability rights that it’s mind-boggling; I’m not even sure where to start to express my thoughts and feelings.

First of all, what the hell was this teacher thinking in facilitating such a disgusting show of immature and exclusionary behavior? That the very person who is charged with educating young children and who should be modeling some fairly core, fundamental principals of human behavior —of which acceptance of each others’ differences and learning how to get along with those who may not be “just like us” should be paramount— should be the driving force behind such bullying leaves me outraged.

Frankly, autism is not even the issue here. I would feel the same outrage if this happened in any class or among any age group. Children are cruel enough to one another when left to their own devices; what could possibly motivate an adult to encourage such thinking, let alone acting on it? I simply don’t understand.

Before someone gets all righteous on me and slams me with the “disruptive behavior” card, let me be perfectly clear. I don’t know Alex Barton; all I know is what I read in some news articles. The child has some alleged behavior issues which, from the sound of it, have been disruptive in school. Do I think the teacher should simply turn a blind eye and roll over on this issue? No, but public humiliation and a class lesson in Bullying 101 is not the answer. It’s been indicated that he is being evaluated for Aspergers and may be eligible for an IEP. No matter what, it seems to me this goes beyond a mere lack of resources or training necessary to cope with challenging behaviors in the classroom and the teacher should be held accountable for her actions in some fashion.

Other bloggers are covering this story as well. I don’t have a full listing but you can check for yourself at the Autism Hub where you will find a phenomenal collection of voices from parents, professionals, and most importantly, autistic adults.) The first posts I saw were from Amanda and Bev. Bev’s post includes contact information for the school officials so you can let your voice be heard.

An interesting point of information to note here is that Florida is one of only a handful of states given a stellar rating by this watchdog organization for its recently enacted anti-bullying legislation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go into effect until December 1, 2008. Perhaps the teacher thought she’d better get her licks in while she still could?

If you live in a state with no anti-bullying laws, you might want to contact your state legislators and urge them to draft and pass one. Your kid could be the next one voted off the island…

The opinions are flying on this one, folks. Some people actually think this teacher did a good thing. (Go here to read comments on the news article.) Lest my point be lost on you, I do not agree.

I am beyond outraged by this situation! It’s utterly despicable that a teacher would even think to do something of this sort to any child…disability or not. One of my children has dealt with a bit of bullying and it’s awful. I can’t imagine going through it when an adult you trust with the care of your child is the instigator.

Christschool has done a masterful job of compiling draft letters of complaint to the authorities and the media over at Thinking in Metaphors. Anyone who wants to use them please let Christschool know and also forward copies to ASAN who are trying to coordinate responses.

While I live in Texas, and am more familiar with our guidelines, I do believe this instance falls under the “Professional Standards” and “guidelines”; laws for Educators. In Texas which under the section 3.0 Ethical Conduct Towards Students states; “3.2 The educator shall not knowingly treat a student in a manner that adversely affects the student’s learning, physical health, mental health, or safety.” Included in our “Professional Standards” the law continues “The Texas educator shall comply with standard practices and ethical conduct toward students, professional colleagues, school officials, parents, and members of the community and shall safeguard academic freedom.” I am pretty sure there will be something applicable in all states.

I taught fifth grade for 8 1/2 years. Every week, we pulled one child’s name from a hat for an activity called Positive Focus. Every child in the class had to write a note for five quiet minutes to the child whose name was selected, focusing on the positive things about that person. We teachers said we did not read the notes, but of course we did, because we HAD to make sure nothing in the notes was mean or cruel. Luckily, it NEVER was, not even to the oddest duck in the grade, because we taught them HOW to focus positively. We modeled it. We reinforced it every chance we got. When it was your week, you even wrote to YOURSELF about the good things you recognized about you. At the end of the day, you took all the notes home to read.

Any teacher who doesn’t understand the logic of Positive Focus, or the abusiveness of what this witch did, should be the one voted out of school permanently, if you ask me. Let’s all go to her house and tell her what we think of her and see how she likes it. SHEEEEEESH

I am saddened by what I think must be running through little Alex’s mind. How do you recover when you know 14 small children and a teacher voted you out of a group…a family. It must be horrible. My 19 year old son was diagnosed with Aspergers when he was in the second grade. He had a loving teacher that called his mother and myself in for a conference. She was crying because she didn’t know how to tell us that she suspected our wonderful son had Aspergers. Because of her interest in our son, she opened a world of information to us. My son graduated with honors from High School last year and has just completed his 1st year of college. I now wonder where my son would have been had he been voted out of class. My thoughts go with Alex and his mother Melissa. My son’s second grade teacher gave us the best advice anyone gave us, be your son’s biggest advocate…and we were. My son is a beautiful human being who has some challenges, but who doesn’t.Sincerely, Bruce Parrish

Unfortunately I feel this sort of thing happens in subtle ways. And if your child can’t communicate well, you never know! My son rarely comes home to tell me about his day. Luckily my sister works in the school system and she helps me by having others watch out for my son. BUT we never know what goes on behind closed doors and that is very sad and sickening. Frankly, until these teachers are educated more about the special needs child, this stuff will probably continue.

I sent my son’s teacher a pamphlet about Autism and she got offended. She sent me a note saying how “I am not tattling on Tony when he has a bad day, I just thought you wanted to know.” Ummmm……..yeah, but don’t refer to him as NAUGHTY, DISRUPTIVE, COMBATIVE and put the notes on the outside of his backpack for all to see. I had to let her know that her tactics were unacceptable!